


Catch Up

by ellievolia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fix-It, M/M, Post 2x09, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 00:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2713043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellievolia/pseuds/ellievolia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for 2x09 </p><p>After the events in Puerto Rico, it's a wonder if things will go back to normal for this team; for these friends. Leo doesn't plan on changing anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch Up

**Author's Note:**

> I needed to let some feelings out! I don't believe Mack is dead, obviously. This is post Puerto Rico, when they've back on base and have retrieved Mack. I apologise if there are any mistakes in typos in this.
> 
> I invite any and all forms of feedback, and if you want to tell me something privately, my email is ellievolia at gmail dot com. Hope you enjoy!

Sometimes, it feels like months have passed. It’s only been a few days in reality, but it’s all so blurred, fuzzy in Leo’s mind. Crazy. He can’t even imagine how it must be for Mack. 

Fitz - Fitz loves science, but he hates hospitals, so he’s relieved that Mack doesn’t spend more than a day in one of these sterile, creepy white rooms, all artificial lights and artificial smiles. Mack’s quick to walk around again, gingerly, like his joints ache, but he’s got a determined look on his face as he does. Fitz finds it relieving. 

But. Fitz can see how Bobbi and Jemma give Mack a wide berth, how even Hunter will make strange, stilted small talk with him, like he’s a stranger. And worst thing is, as much as it makes Fitz angry, he can’t confront them about it. All he can do, really, is be there for Mack, like Mack’s been there for him before; treats him like he wants to be treated.

Fitz isn’t really mad at Bobbi, and Coulson, and Jemma. He gets it; he’s shaken too. He’s never seen Mack like this before, violent, aggressive, _angry_. It’s never been what seem to constitute Mack’s personality. In that tower, for a moment, Mack wanted to kill them, and almost managed to kill Jemma. 

For that, Fitz should be angry, but he knows, he _knows_ it wasn’t Mack. He’s seen Mack walk into the lab, and apologize to Jemma, and she took it in stride, nodding and smiling faintly at him, obviously trying not to flinch away from him. Mack - it’s not like Ward, who’s betrayed them so deeply Leo bears the scars of it every day. Mack didn’t want to do it, he didn’t want things to change. He just wanted to help.

Mack, after a few days, walks around with a hunch to his shoulders, stays in the garage more ever than before, and. And, enough is enough, Leo thinks to himself. 

“Mack, hey,” he greets Mack one afternoon, walking straight into the garage to stand by Mack, who’s nose deep in the hood of a car. Mack looks up, surprised. 

“Hey, Turbo,” he replies. His voice is exactly the same. His face is exactly the same. Like Leo, the damage done is mostly inside. 

“I was wondering if you could help me with the - um, the -” Leo drags his fingers through his hair, motioning towards the lab. He tries not to get frustrated, but it’s difficult when words are so hard. “With the dwarves. Their - their flying. Thing.”

Mack looks down at his work for a moment, but then he nods. “Yeah, sure,” he says, wiping his hands on the rag stuck to his front pocket. 

They spend hours on working a rescue system on the dwarves, an emergency system to send them back to Leo if controls are going funny, losing track of time as they pour over blueprints and tweak designs, together, like it was before Puerto Rico. Mack - he’s animated, and he laughs, teases Leo exactly like before, without that hint of fear in his eyes, without the stiffness to his movements. When he begs off to go to bed, Leo feels accomplished. 

\--

Leo can’t help it - he’s surprised when Jemma appears at his bedroom door later that day, her hands twisted together after she knocks on the doorframe. She’s biting her lip worriedly, and Fitz looks at her, straight in the eyes. He doesn’t invite her to sit. 

“Is Mack okay?” she asks, and she sounds worried. Leo nods, after a moment. 

“Yeah, yeah, he’s - I think so.”

“Can you - I saw you two in the lab earlier. Can you tell him that I’m sorry, too?”

Leo takes a breath, composing his thoughts. When he transposes his thoughts and actions onto Mack’s and the other members of his team, he wonders - are they sorry about him, too? The overwhelming feeling towards Mack seems to be fear, while the one applied to Leo is, apparently, pity. He doesn’t know which is worse. 

“You can tell him - tell him yourself,” Leo replies, soft. 

Jemma nods, then looks away. “You know we didn’t meant for him to fall, right? Coulson wanted to save him.”

“Funny, it took - it took Bobbi and I forcing ourselves down that hole for that to happen.”

Jemma steps into leo’s room then, leaning against his messy desk. “He was terrified, Fitz.”

“So was I! So was Bobbi!” Leo closes his hands, feeling them tremble against his thighs, and takes a couple of deep breaths. “I’m not mad at him, Jemma. I’m not - not mad at anyone. I just want Mack to feel better.”

Sometimes, words rush out of him, in barely more than a breath, a long stream following his thoughts. Sometimes he can barely parse it, but he knows Jemma has caught all of it. He used to speak a lot faster than that, and she never missed a beat. 

And as it is, she smiles, genuine and soft - she looks so fond in that moment Fitz has to look away. “Well, keep doing what you’re doing, Fitz.”

\--

Leo keeps on seeking Mack out, like he would have before, exactly the same. He doesn’t change the way he talks to Mack, touches Mack, teases Mack, and it’s easier to live like this than to be scared of him. 

And Mack - Mack is the same, to Leo. He’s still the guy who’s disentangling Leo’s thoughts and words, and the guy who helps him coordinate his hands in his hands. He’s the guy who makes him sandwiches in the middle of the night when they’re still working. He’s that guy that makes Leo laugh with dirty engineering jokes that’d go even over Jemma’s head. 

He’s still Mack, exactly like when Leo met him for the first time, months ago. That man that Leo has learnt to trust, to work with, never quite as seamlessly as it was with Jemma, but close enough. 

One evening, he hears Bobbi tell Hunter that she misses Mack, misses his friendship. Fitz has to - he walks in, looking away when they both turn to stare at him. 

“You still have it, you know,” he says, flushing red. “His friendship. You still have it.”

He looks at Bobbi then, his lips pressed together in a thin line. He tries not to bite them. She nods at him, after a beat, and Leo retreats. Leaves them alone. 

\--

Things with Mack get better. Leo spies Bobbi in the garage once, laughing with Mack over a Hydra motorcycle, and leaves them be, smiling to himself as he goes to the lab on his own. 

Leo doesn’t think it’s his own doing. He’s just kept things going exactly as they were, and allowed for time to do its thing, heal some wounds. 

“Hey, you busy?” Mack asks one evening, when Leo’s in his room, researching old designs. Leo invites him in with a gesture, and flips the file he’d been pouring over on the desk as Mack clicks the door closed. 

“What’s up?”

“I just. I just wanted to say thank you, Turbo,” Mack says, after he’s taken a seat on Leo’s bed, palms flat against his thighs. 

“What for?”

“For not treating me like I’ve been trying to kill you.”

Leo pauses, and then goes to sit next to Mack, close but not close enough to touch. “Because you didn’t. It wasn’t you.”

“Still.”

Leo shakes his head, turning towards Mack more, forcing Mack to look at him with fingers framing his face. He can feel his bad hand trembling a little. 

“Haven’t done anything special,” he says. “I wasn’t helping. I was just - I just kept going at it.”

“I know you spoke to Bobbi, and to Jemma.”

Leo frowns, thinking over what he’s trying to say. He hopes his words don’t betray him.

“Look, it’s just. For a moment there, you were on a completely different page than they were. And I know how that feels, I’ve been on a different page for months now. The rest - the team, they just needed to catch up.”

Mack’s eyes move all over Leo’s face, a little like he’s studying him, a lot like he’s trying to take it all in, and process. “You’re always ahead, aren’t you?”

“No. No, I don’t - I don’t think so. To me it’s easy. I think the others had to take longer to get on your page. Maybe they’re not even there just yet. But. You’re my friend. You’re -” Leo stops himself before he says these words again, looking down and taking his hands away. he remembers all too well the pain of Jemma’s rejection, and he can’t bear Mack’s, too. 

But Mack grabs them in his, warm and callused. “You’re more than that,” Mack says, all sincere, bright eyes, and Leo’s breath is sapped right out of his lungs, like Mack just punched him. He stares at Mack for a long time, his heart beating so fast Leo fears it’s going to explode right out of his chest.

“Yeah,” he says, eventually. “Yeah, you - me too.” Leo curses his inadequacy, but Mack smiles a little brighter when he leans down and kisses Leo. 

Leo is shocked motionless for all of half a second, before he surges into action, kissing back enthusiastically, pushing himself up to his knees and grabbing onto Mack’s forearm with one hand, the other one going to Mack’s jaw, feeling it move as Mack deepens the kiss. They turn more towards each other, Mack reaching out for Leo’s waist, pulling him closer, insistent but gentle. 

Leo only pulls away when he starts feeling dizzy, chuckling against Mack’s cheek. At some point he’s moved on to straddle Mack’s lap, and it’s _great_. 

“Man, we should have been doing this for months,” Leo says, and Mack laughs, leaning back on his elbows. 

Like this, on Leo’s bed, his lips swollen and so red, he looks obscene. “It’s good when we’re on the same page, isn’t it?”

Leo leans down over Mack, a hand on his chest. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

\--

Leo knows that nothing is quite fixed - not for him, not for Mack. But people in the Playground have stopped avoiding Mack entirely, even if they don’t seek him out like Leo does. People don’t leave the room when he walks in. They’re catching up.

\--


End file.
